Now that his grandmother has dementia and lives on a ward, John Reed has finally confronted his memories of growing up with her and concluded that all the people and animals that died around her were probably deliberately poisoned, and that's why whenever he'd visit her and eat her weird "health food," he'd fall asleep for days at a time, sometimes waking up in a hospital with near-fatal breathing problems.

Enough Hilton Hhonors points to cover $1200 worth of stays can be bought for $12, and the crooks who're inside your account can use your associated credit-card to buy more points and more hotel rooms for themselves.

85% of domestic violence shelters work with women who have been GPS-tracked by their abusers; 75% have clients who were attacked with hidden mobile surveillance apps; cops routinely steal and share nude selfies from the phones of women pulled over in traffic stops, and NSA spies used agency's massive, illegal surveillance apparatus to stalk women they were sexually attracted to, a practice that was dubbed "LOVEINT."

Under a proposed "computer crime bill," if you use a computer in the commission of an offense that damages "national security, human welfare, the economy or the environment" you could face a life sentence.

Carl Hiaasen's novels are treasures of hilarity, violence, comeuppance and ardent love for Florida wilderness. The very best of them feature "Skink," a wild man of the woods with a fantastic history and a twisted sense of justice. With Skink No Surrender, Hiaasen brings his greatest character to a new generation by transforming the violent, profane anti-hero into the star of a young adult novel.Read the rest

The dollar bills, skyscrapers and machine gun with the initials ‘US’ stamped on it convey this inmate’s love for the American mafia-like lifestyle. The eyes signify ‘I’m watching over you’ (the other inmates in the prison or camp). The epaulette tattooed on the shoulder denotes the inmates 'rank' among the criminal caste.

The Laurens, GA County Sheriff's Dept broke down David and Teresa Hooks' door and fatally shot David Hooks on a tip from Randall Garrett, a burglar with multiple felony convictions, who said he saw meth while robbing their house.

The protesters accuse the police of working with the thugs, who wore masks as they attacked the encampments; the violence has led to postponement of the planned talks between the Umbrella Revolution leaders and the Hong Kong administration.

Hammad Akbar, a Pakistani national and CEO of Invocode, marketers of Stealthgenie, was arrested in LA on Saturday and charged with a variety of offenses related to making, marketing and selling "interception devices."

While being taken into custody, she allegedly pulled away from the two deputies who were holding her arms and kicked a third deputy before being subdued. She was put in leg restraints and placed on her stomach in the back of a deputy’s sport utility vehicle.

Upon arriving at the Bonner County Jail, deputies discovered that Spence had chewed through the seat’s upholstery and into the foam cushioning, the affidavit said. Replacing the Chevrolet Tahoe’s seat was estimated at more than $2,000.

An allegedly combative Spence was arrested by Sandpoint Police in July for battery at the Panida Theater. A police report said Spence produced a beer after she was put in the back of the patrol vehicle and consumed it en route to the jail.

Lauren Beukes's latest crime/horror novel Broken Monsters marries the snappy, hard-boiled cleverness of her 2010 novel Zoo City with the visceral horror of 2013's The Shining Girls and yields up a tale that's as terrifying as it is contemporary -- Cory Doctorow reviews Broken Monsters.Read the rest

There were 800 convictions in the S&L crisis, but the DOJ hasn't prosecuted a single banker involved in the financial crisis; as Matt Taibbi points out in the brilliant, essential book The Divide, if shutting down a huge bank would impose too many costs on society, then why don't prosecutors insist that the banks be split up as a condition of not dropping the entire C-suite into the deepest dungeon in the nation?

The Inspectorate of Constabulary says that police now tell victims of property crimes to "solve the crimes themselves," directing them over the phone to review CCTV footage and canvas their neighbourhoods for witnesses.

Two cops from Bloomfield, NJ's police department have been indicted, and another plead guilty after a suppressed dashcam video showed them beating a man who was facing years in prison for "resisting arrest" (the DA dropped his charges right away).

Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe unleashed a storm of brutal, genocidal violence after losing the 2008 elections -- and now we know that it was funded by western hedge-funds and banks, led by Och-Ziff Capital Management, the largest publicly traded fund, with assistance from Blackrock, GLG Partners, and Credit Suisse, who raised $100M for Mugabe's weapons and torture-chambers in exchange for a sweetheart deal on the country's platinum mines.

New Delhi government officials have hired 40 young men to wear monkey masks and jump around outside the parliament buildings in an attempt to scare off macaques wreaking havoc on the grounds. From the AFP:

The NDMC, the body tasked with providing civic services, said the men were “very talented” and had been trained to “closely copy” the noises and actions of the more aggressive langurs to scare away the smaller rhesus macaques.

“They often wear a mask on their faces, hide behind the trees and make these noises to scare away the simians,” NDMC chairman Jalaj Srivastava told AFP.